


Birds of a feather fly together

by AzWrites



Category: Le visiteur du futur | Visitor from the Future: Neo Versailles
Genre: Canon Divergence, From the end of season 1, M/M, No Dialogue, POV Alternating, POV Henry, POV Outsider, conceptually it's a slow burn. in actuality it's 2k words long, queer people everywhere, spoilers for all four seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzWrites/pseuds/AzWrites
Summary: After the destruction of the Time Patrol, Henry and Renard find themselves unexpectedly stuck in 2010. While the missions continue and the time machine gets repaired, Henry finds a job, and learns more about both humanity and himself.
Relationships: Henry Castafolte/Le Visiteur | The Visitor
Kudos: 4





	Birds of a feather fly together

**Author's Note:**

> Me demandez pas pourquoi j'ai écrit ça en anglais, j'en sais rien ^^

Raph burned the manual. Of course he did, it was the only way to stop the Time Patrol. But without the manual it’s more difficult to repair the time machine, and when time resets itself this suddenly becomes a problem. All of a sudden they get memories from a time that once existed and now won’t ever exist, and his friend is already pushing some buttons on the machine when sparks begin to fly.

Ironically there’s no time to do anything. No time to repair the machine, no time to stop the process, only time to hold each other and pray they don’t blow up. They fall on the ground in the forest, in front of Raph and his friends. The machine crackles a bit more, gives a small explosion, then dies. They’re stuck in 2010.

* * *

Henry will always be grateful for Raph’s hospitality. Harboring two people from 2550 can’t be easy, especially as their funds are more than limited. He tries to focus on repairing the time machine, but he sees how the equipment is inexistent, how his friend is getting antsy, how Raph is getting worried about money, and how the apartment is getting too small for the three of them.

So for once they do the sensible thing: forge themselves papers and try to get jobs. Which isn’t easy, far from it, but in the process of trying to prove again and again his own existence Henry reboots so many times that he just-

stops rebooting.

He’s a robot, always has been, and by some miracle of science he now knows it. He knows he’s not flesh and blood but plastic and wires, he knows his friend lied to him for years, he doesn’t know if his thoughts and feelings are even his to begin with.

The fallout is ugly, of course, but knowing what he can do ultimately helps him hack into government databases. Henry gets himself both some papers and some breathing room by leaving the apartment more often. But he needs money to live in 2010, and Henry has standards, and needs access to a lab to repair the machine. So while Renard tries to find a job without any qualifications and keep it more than a few days (one could wonder how much of it is incompetence at regular jobs or just wanting to focus on saving the world), his robot friend gets himself a teaching position in a university.

* * *

And Henry is _thriving_. He pretended being a graduate from a small foreign university and chose to teach regular physics instead of engineering or robotics, just to avoid suspicions, but the man is brilliant and the students see it. Here's a teacher who'll get angry at you if you purposely don't put in the work, but will spend more time with you at the end of the class if you just don't get this one concept. He wants everybody to understand the beauty of science but doesn't hesitate to expel bullies. He knows more theories than anyone would ever need to remember but broke three coffee machines in a week. He has a small flying robot that by all accounts shouldn't work but he talks to it as if it's a pet. He always has an anecdote and opinions on some historical scientist. If for some reason you really don't want to work during his class there's always a way to get him talking about his friends. It's unclear just how many friends he has, or how they even became friends, they all seem so different, but the more regular students know most of their names and the crazy situations they somehow find themselves into. They really wish they knew _this idiot_ 's name, but they already like him just from the way Henry talks about him.

Henry himself, however, did not expect to actually like this job. Sure, it's always nice to share his knowledge, and it's not as if his friends were curious about it, so getting to talk about science for a few hours every day is an appreciated change, but this was just supposed to bring in some money while he works on the time machine and the changes needed in the timeline. But then the students arrived, with their stupid questions and foolish theories without basis and their thirst for knowledge and youthful enthusiasm, and it's endearing, in some way. And, well. Raph is busy with his own classes and trying to flirt with his neighbor Stella, he doesn’t really know Tim and Leo anyway, Renard is hell-bent on saving the world, which is a noble pursuit but his friend treats it as a solitary activity since their falling out, and mending those fences takes time; and Henry needs to talk to people. He needs to throw theories at someone and see what makes sense, he needs to see people go on with their everyday lives, he needs the human interactions, as paradoxical as it sounds.

So he does the paperwork and learns to navigate the administrative maze and prepares some classes. He laughs at his colleagues' jokes and offers pastries to his students at the end of the week and tries to learn their slang. He learns their names and what they want to do with their lives and their doubts and oh how it resonates with him, to find oneself suddenly thrown into the wild world and wanting to fix all its problems and not knowing where to begin. He sees a student harass another on the first week and promptly discovers that he does have the administrative ability to expel anyone he wants from his class. He tries not to talk too much about his friends, especially Renard, because those burgeoning feelings are complicated and scary and private, and the law in this time isn't quite as kind as it will be later, but the students quickly discover which buttons to push. Figuratively speaking.

And for all his efforts he still doesn't quite fit in, but he doesn't really mind it. He sees that the students that come to his office or stay at the end of the class are those who don't really fit in either. So he reassures Marie when she lets something about her girlfriend slip, he makes sure to always use the right pronouns for Tony, he tells Julie to stim as much as she needs, he helps Ahmed get the right papers to stay in the country. He doesn't exactly understand what they're going through, but he gets it in some way. And while saving the future is an important duty, helping people in this present seems just as necessary.

* * *

And then he learns about Riton. It’s quite a random thing, just a poster in the street, but his curiosity is piqued. So he disguises himself, goes to a show, meets Germain and sees the young man’s obsession, and isn’t that a wild thing, that he gets to witness what will be the birth of the Castafolte robots, and ultimately his own birth? Time travel really is crazy like this. He’s glad the university he chose is too small for Germain’s ambitions and he won’t risk meeting him at work. This would have been difficult to explain.

Reconciling with his old friend took some time, but they’re talking again. Raph often finds them leaning over maps or timelines, talking about which event to change to avoid acid rains or zombies centuries in the future. The two of them are close friends again, but something else is happening, that doesn’t quite have a name yet. The truth being exposed brought understanding. Henry keeps teaching, though. The time machine is working again, but some improvements are always possible, and he needs the equipment. They really need the money, too, because while moving their base of operations to the 21st century is more comfortable, Raph’s apartment isn’t made for three grown adults, even if one of them is a robot, and the young man needs some privacy.

So Raph keeps studying and looking for a job, invites Stella over once, then twice. Renard agrees to move in whatever apartment Henry will find. He refines his plans, meets Judith and Matteo again, goes back to saving the world. Henry helps, of course he does, but he also keeps teaching, grading papers, and giving advice to lost young people.

The doctor Castafolte’s classes get more structured as he gains experience, but he always keeps his eccentricity. His office holds a home-made pendulum and some old books, but also boxes of wires and gears and batteries. Sometimes an engineering teacher comes asking for his help. Every few weeks someone asks why he isn’t teaching advanced robotics instead of physics, and he laughs that he already sees too many robots in his everyday life. Nobody understands. Henry doesn’t care, he’s happy just helping students get a foot on the ladder. It’s always the same kind of students that gravitate around him, too, even if they’re not in his class. Some people just recognize each other.

* * *

And then one day he doesn’t come to class. The students don’t understand, the other teachers neither. Henry had never missed a day of work or even been late before. The secretary calls him, and he doesn’t answer. He does call back, at the end of the day, to say he found a new job. She says he sounded different. The university scrambles to find a replacement, but it’s just not the same.

A few days later some students hear a noise in his supposedly empty office, and they finally meet doctor Castafolte’s... friend? boyfriend? Nobody really knows and they don’t think it’s that important. The man seems raggedy, his clothes have seen better days and he’s so nervous, rummaging through Henry’s stuff and muttering about hacking and backstabbing and plans. They don’t understand what he’s talking about, but for some reason they believe him when he says he’ll get doctor Castafolte back. Back from what they don’t know, but if this strange man can convince him to teach here again that’s all they need.

And doctor Castafolte does come back. He apologizes profusely, says he never meant to leave but didn’t have a choice. He promises it won’t happen again. Somehow he gets his job back.

* * *

Constance’s offer was tempting, but her vision of the Missionaries’ work has the same flaw as the Time Patrol’s, as Joseph’s, as Renard’s. They focus on the future too much. Henry knows now that preventing catastrophes doesn’t mean anything if humans themselves don’t get better. And he can’t help them get better from an office building in the future. Mankind has to change, and the work has to be done with them, from the ground up.

So he keeps teaching. He signs a few articles, insists his work is not as groundbreaking as it is. He talks to students, help them get an association going, bring them to science tournaments. He writes reference letters, gives autographs or his number to those who leave or graduate.

He misses Renard, because this idiot apparently managed to get himself stuck in the future. But Henry is building another time machine, a different model, so he tells himself it’s alright. When the machine is finished he wants to go himself, but finals are coming up and he promised Charlie he’d be there for their thesis defense. So he sends Raph and Stella, who miss their friend too, and he tries to ignore his doubts. They take longer than he would have liked to come back, and in the meantime he gets a new office, bigger, with more seats. There’s always a few students who prefer to stay there, after all.

* * *

Stella doesn’t come back, but Raph says she’s happy. Renard does come back. And stays. They don’t really know what they are anymore. But times are changing and those feelings have been blooming and Renard looks at him in a different way, or maybe the same way he always did. So Henry thinks about Marie’s girlfriend who just became her fiancée, about Tony who finally managed to change all his papers, about Charlie living their best life out in the open, and he kisses his best friend of so many years. It’s sloppy, and uncoordinated, and there’s too many feelings, but it’s _them_. It’s always been them, in the future or now.

The students notice, of course. How could they not, when _this idiot_ became _his idiot_. They offer him a rainbow mug. It isn’t much but it’s the thought that counts. He publishes a visionary article on general relativity and goes to Marie’s wedding.

And this is what his life becomes. Henry Castafolte, new professor of physics in an average Parisian university, time traveller and world saver in his spare time, slowly becomes more famous for his unique personality and the queer students that always follow him around like ducklings than for his scientific discoveries, as groundbreaking as they are.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a afternoon and then spent a few days re-reading it and adding maybe half a dozen words and two commas. Nobody told me a first fic would be so stressful.


End file.
